"Take that, career anxiety!"

Beating imposter syndrome to progress in your job

J Moss' Story

Learning to develop confidence to be awesome in your career.

This is J. She’s a valued member of the Careercake community and has watched our videos to get ahead in her career. She’s an awesome example of how, by spending time on your career path and learning how to develop a sense of confidence you can feel great at work.

J’s situation may be all too familiar to you. Here she talks about trying to work in a super competitive market and trying to fit in to a new job with new people (gulp!); and the awesome way she took charge of the situation and is flying in her current workplace.

Her challenge began when the competition for jobs in her market had got super competitive because of the effects of Brexit. After a series of unsuccessful interviews she began questioning herself and her skills. In a bid to try and secure a job she enlisted the help of a few traditional career coaches but it didn’t really get her anywhere.

‘They just provided me with advice that I actually knew; suggesting it was more of the confidence issues I needed help with. They also weren’t really that representative of me.

I needed advice that spoke to me and made me feel like I fit in

She needed a much needed confidence boost; she needed to start feeling good about herself.

‘I decided to really look into my career plan. At the time, I felt I needed to get some advice on re-building my confidence as well as mapping out my action plan towards my career goals.

'I watched few videos from Aimee, and I was thrilled by how much a positive impact they had on me. It really made me feel that if I want to achieve something, I can make it happen by planning and practicing in a correct way.

'The advice is honest, punchy, and most importantly, can be applied straightway into practice. You can actually see the positive changes quickly. It didn't take me long to develop a very practical interview strategy for myself based on Careercake’s content, and I did get my dream job by using the strategy’.

That’s right. After assessing her approach and understanding how to position herself by watching Careercake, she developed a new sense of confidence and only went on to land the job of her dreams.

Applause!

The next stage.

Getting the job is only half the battle. What happens when you rock up on your first day?

The interview process is still going on!

Cue second stage of career anxiety: making friends, fitting in and adding to your skill set.

This is a huge area of pain for people when they start a new job. Your induction period is full of firsts - first time you meet your boss and say why you love the company; first time you have to run a meeting with your new team… How can you pass this process with confidence? And how to make the most of it to ensure you are ticking off the right parts of your career plan?

Over to you, J:

‘There’s no ladder or defined learning path for my area of work nor ‘proper training’ or enable me to improve my professional knowledge.

'I watched What to Do in the First 90 Days of Your New Job and did an objective monthly review on myself. This helped me to structure my conversations and understand ways to talk to my new teams that would make them think I knew what I was doing! Because I was really nervous about working within a new and older teams. I put too much pressure on and was worried my clients wouldn’t think I could do a good job. I needed to educate and get up to speed to make them think I was on the ball.

Uh-oh. There’s a bit of imposter syndrome coming in.

But wait!

‘I gradually realised the my job function wasn’t really the right fit so I spoke with my line manager at the time and decided to transfer into a less senior role; that way I could build up my knowledge and experience step by step. This was part of my career plan and I watched a lot of Careercake’s videos to help me to understand the different challenges I was faced with in this role.

'This was a few months ago and since then I couldn't be happier! I am still learning what real life is and how to approach new situations but at least when it comes to my career I am clear about what I want and what will make me happy. This makes me confident.

When I look back this experience, I think the significant difference and value Careercake made is empowering me to become more creative and independent instead of teaching me to follow instructions and guidance

Do you want to get rid of your career anxiety? Looking for advice and content on overcoming the actual issues you'll face when searching for a job or when you start a new job?